


The Last Loner Job

by buriedbybooks



Category: Leverage
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24002830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buriedbybooks/pseuds/buriedbybooks
Summary: Eliot should have known better than to answer the phone at two in the morning, and when he’d heard Vance’s voice, should have hung up immediately.  He didn’t, and now the job had gone to shit.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 14
Kudos: 157





	The Last Loner Job

Eliot glanced at the little bit of sky that he could see through the bars on the window and tested his bonds again. It was almost dark, and he’d made no progress on getting himself loose. His captors had used a five point restraint system reminiscent of a psych ward or prison medical facility instead of a dilapidated basement. Obviously the guys that caught him were taking no chances, even after they’d broken his nose (again), multiple fingers in his right hand, cracked a couple ribs, and severely bruised up the rest of him. Eliot was pretty sure he had a concussion; it would explain why his eyes were having trouble focusing and the bars seemed to waver.

He’d been in worse situations. He’d watched Sophie in _A Streetcar Named Desire_ after all. Eliot couldn’t help but smirk at the memory. But seriously, he had gotten himself out of tighter jams before, it was just going to take time. Which he didn’t have if he was going to get back to Portland in time.

Eliot could picture the disappointment on Parker’s face and the sad look in Hardison’ eyes when they realized he wasn’t there on Saturday morning. The twisting in his chest had nothing to do with the physical pain.

Growling again, he strained against the restraints, creating a mantra of curses as he struggled to reach a buckle, or rip a strap. Eliot focused his anger to sharpen his mind, no longer furious with his captors--though they came a close second--but rather the ‘friend’ who had gotten into this.

He was never picking up the phone for Vance again.

**Eighteen Hours Earlier**

Eliot woke up when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He looked over at his partners sprawled out on the couch beside him and the blue glow of the now-blank television screen. They were still asleep, though Eliot noticed Parker twitch as if she were going to wake up and look for the buzzing noise.

Pulling the phone out of his pocket, Eliot went to silence it but paused when he saw the name on the screen.

Vance.

Shit.

He slid his thumb across the screen as he quietly made his way into another room. “Someone had better be dead, Vance.”

“Good morning to you, too, Sleeping Beauty.” Vance sounded far too cheerful for Eliot’s mood. He could almost hear Vance’s feral grin.

“What do you want Vance? I don’t work for you anymore, remember?” Eliot should just hang up. Whatever this was, it wasn’t his problem. He should hang up and go back out to the couch and get the other two steered toward bed so that they wouldn’t wake up sore in the morning.

“This one’s up your alley, not mine, Spencer.” Vance’s voice was cool, and far too smug. “Got a hostage situation out near Richland--a scientist and her kid--stashed in one of the old storage facilities. Not a place we want to drop a bunch of 19 year old hot heads, but that’s the current plan. I’ll send you the details; you’ve got until midnight, Spencer.”

“What’s special about this one?” There was something missing in Vance’s briefing. Some reason Vance wanted Eliot specifically.

There was a pause. “It’s Grace and Irene,” Vance told him eventually.

“You shoulda led with that, Vance!” Eliot hissed into the phone. “The team and I can be on the road in-”

“No, not your team. Just you. They’re watching for Hardison after his last visit.”

Eliot sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Hostage situations were straight forward enough. He could be there and back before Parker and Hardison could miss him. “How many guys on the ground?”

“Don’t know for sure; sniper picked off the scout the unit’s security tried to send in.”

“What are their demands?”

The pause on the other end of the phone told Eliot that Vance thought he was being dense. It was a facility outside Richland. It was pretty obvious what they wanted with a top tier scientist like Grace. “Fine,” Eliot growled. “How much and how are they planning to get it out?”

“They were aiming for the holding facility and grabbed Grace to help them move the radioactive material; Irene was for security. They didn’t make it out before the alarm was sounded and now they’ve taken over one of the old buildings.”

“Do we know which group?”

“No”

“Fine, I’ll do it. For Grace. Not you.”

Eliot still kept a bag packed, and he’d stashed a variety of identity papers in his car. He left a note on the kitchen counter and snuck out of the apartment without waking his partners.

*******

There were sounds in the hallway outside the room where he’d been stashed. Patrol. Two sets of feet. Ex-Marine, he decided. Still doing a bit of lock-step.

There had been more unfriendlies than he had expected from Vance’s disastrously short briefing and notes that he’d been given when he got to Richland. This was a serious group, and Eliot wasn’t convinced that they were working for a foreign agency. The part of the facilities they were in focused on storage of hazardous material prior to remediation or disposal--what better material to weaponize into some sort of dirty bomb.

Even though Eliot knew that he could use their skills, he was glad that Parker and Hardison were nowhere near this job. There were too many unknowns, and a lot at stake. And gauging from the quality of light, only a handful of hours before Vance and his pissed-off 19 year olds were dropped on their heads.

Eliot felt one of the buckles slip slightly as he worried at it as best he could with his good left hand. He hoped that Irene was still safe, and that Grace was alright.

**Twelve Hours Earlier**

Getting into the facility had been easy. He’d taken out the sniper first, and then timed his entry into the building to be between patrols. Eliot’s intel hadn’t given him any information about where Grace and her daughter had been stashed beyond which building. That left him with a systematic search, and hoping that they were together instead of separated.

No such luck, of course. He should have known at that point that he was royally screwed.

Eliot found Irene first, stuffed into a small utility closet, bound and gagged. Knowing that he was intimidating enough even without being tall, Eliot had gentled his movements and spoken slowly and softly. God. The girl looked so much like Doc when Eliot had first met her father during deployment. The same black hair, mocha skin and mulsih glare. Those eyes, though, just on the gold side of hazel, were all Grace.

Eliot had only met Irene once before, at Doc’s discharge party a few years ago, and he doubted the girl--she had to be, what, twelve now?--remembered him.

“I’m Eliot. I served with your dad a while back,” Eliot told her gently. “I’m’a cut these ropes, alright, Irene? You need to stay quiet so we can get you outta here.”

“Dallas,” Irene corrected. “You’re Dallas.”

Eliot huffed a laugh. He hadn’t heard that nickname in a long time. They’d known he was naive when he’d joined up, and that he still had small-town-boy with a temper stamped all over him. Calling him Dallas had gotten him absolutely pissed. He’d hated it until it became comforting. “Yeah, that’d be me. I came to get you and your mom out of here.”

“They kept her with them,” Irene told him, keeping her voice low.

Eliot examined her. It looked like even though she’d been crying, she was spitting mad now. Atta girl. Smart too, probably, given who her parents were. “Know where they were headin’?”

Irene shook her head. “They’re in the wrong building. All I heard was that they were going to regroup.”

“That’s good listenin’, Irene.” Eliot knew he’d have to make a decision about whether to try to keep Irene safe without leaving the building, or getting her out and then having to come back in. Grace and Doc would kill him slowly if he let anything happen to their girl. Even though he knew that it would make it more difficult and dangerous, Eliot had to get Irene out. He couldn’t keep her with him, and he couldn’t try stashing her somewhere with so many unknowns.

“We have to get you somewhere safe, then I’ll come back in for Grace.” Eliot helped the girl to her feet, glad to see that she was relatively steady despite having been trussed up for a while. “Keep quiet, keep close.”

*******

That buckle wasn’t coming loose. Eliot sighed and craned his neck to check the window again, trying to guess how long before the troops arrived. Not that it wasn’t anything these bastards deserved, but he worried about Grace getting caught in the crossfire.

Idly, Eliot debated whether breaking his right hand further would allow him to slip his hand out of the cuff. Looked like he’d waited too long, he decided. His hand had already swollen too much, given how tight the cuffs were.

He would not think about Parker and Hardison, or not being there in the morning. That way lay distraction. He would keep trying to figure a way out of this. The guards had to come in to check on him sometime, and that’s when he’d make a move. Eliot had taken their measure when they’d taken him out--there was a combination of highly trained ex-special forces and rank amateurs. As long as he had better odds than before, and didn’t have to worry about a defenseless Grace, it would be doable, even in his current condition.

**Ten Hours Earlier**

Eliot left Irene with the EMS team that was stationed outside the perimeter surrounding the building. They seemed competent enough, and it was obvious that they were from the facility instead of contractors brought in for the current situation. Both men knew Irene, and she knew them.

Just before Eliot left, Irene caught hold of his sleeve. “Save her, Dallas.”

“Will do, kid.” Eliot wasn’t all that familiar with children, but he meant it. And that was the best he could do.

On his way back toward the building, Eliot decided on a different route and entrance. They had to have noticed that the sniper was no longer at his post, and had probably sent replacements and rearranged their patrols because of the obvious attack on their position. The old doors had been updated with key-card access; he’d palmed one of the cards from a high-ranking official at the perimeter and he hoped that it worked. Otherwise, brute force was always an option.

The card worked and Eliot slipped back into the building. He’d come across Irene relatively quickly, so there was still a lot of ground to cover. Listening carefully for footsteps, he heard a set walking away from him down the corridor to his left. Following the patrol wasn’t a bad plan for the moment.

Irene’s impression had been that they were going to keep Grace close. That meant he would need to thin out the security and then separate hostage from captors. To do that, Eliot needed to see what he was dealing with. Somewhere in this building, there would be a person or persons who were coordinating the patrol; probably the same people who were holding Grace.

In many buildings with increasing levels of security, one either went further in, further up, or further down to reach the most sensitive areas. From what Eliot had seen of this building, and other military constructions, he was betting on in and down. Breaking off from following the patrol, Eliot took the next hallway that led deeper into the building, searching for an internal staircase to start taking him down. There had to be at least one more level down because he’d seen the narrow, barred basement windows before he’d entered the building.

When he did find the stairway, Eliot paused. The doors did not have windows, but instead were reinforced steel plate. Entering or exiting the stairwell would be blind in both directions, which was not going to give him the advantage. But the sound of another pair of guards starting to close in on his location made the choice for him and Eliot went into the stairway. Down a level and he paused outside the door that would lead into this floor--again, no window. Pressing an ear to the door, Eliot couldn’t hear anything, but he wasn’t sure if that was because there was no one on the other side, or because the door was too thick.

The patrol had followed him into the stairwell. Eliot tucked himself into a corner so that he could catch the guards by surprise when they came down. He’d have needed to get them out of the way, and the small space on the lower level landing would give him the advantage. The first guard--ex-marine--went down with a quick series of blows to the head and throat. The second one saw him coming, and was able to get in a couple shots to Eliot’s ribs before Eliot was able to choke him into unconsciousness with a Judo _Hadakajime_ hold.

With both guards out of commission and trussed up using their own belts and shirts, Eliot knew he would have to bite the bullet and hope no one was on the other side of that door. It was the next logical place to search for Grace, and he could feel the clock running against him. By now, they probably had figured out that Irene was gone, and were going to need to pressure Grace some other way.

Eliot swung the door open, keeping his body shielded by the wall. The first thing he noticed was that he could hear the Columbia River. He checked his angles around the frame, glad to find them mostly clear. This level was a series of rooms off of a rectangular space, with railings around the interior edges of a walkway. The central space was depressed, with two stairways leading down into the concrete floored lab. Keeping low, he went to the rail surrounding the depression and listened to the soft echoing voices blurred by the rush of water. There. They were down there. There was no angle of approach that wouldn’t be exposed.

Easing his way around to another side, Eliot was able to see a couple of guys who were talking. Grace was right there, tied to an old fashioned wheeled chair. Both men held guns.

The men with guns also had ear pieces, and it was becoming apparent that the men tied up in the stairwell were now missing. Whoever they were, they were going to start getting desperate, violent, and unpredictable. Eliot wanted Grace out of there now.

The only way he would get the drop on them was literally. Unfortunately, there were recesses behind the group that he couldn’t see into. More blind angles that did not make him happy about the situation. Eliot slunk around the walkway until he was directly above the men, and then launched himself over the railing, knocking down one man when he landed, and striking out at the other. Neither were well trained in hand to hand, and he was able to make quick work of the two men.

Eliot grabbed some of the duct tape which they had left sitting on Grace’s lap, and used it to restrain the unconscious men. “You okay?” he murmured to Grace as he worked.

“They have Irene.”

“No, I got her out. She’s with the EMTs,” Eliot assured her. Certain the men were secure, he pulled his knife and cut through the tape holding Grace to the chair. “Now, how are you?”

“Fine, fine. She’s safe?” Grace caught his eyes, trying to see if he was lying to her.

“Yes. And she wants you out too. We need to go.”

Grace rubbed her wrists and nodded, keeping close to Eliot as he made his way around the perimeter to the nearest staircase. “There are more of them. I counted at least fifteen while they were dragging me around.”

“Glad you can still count, Grace,” Eliot chuckled. “I’ve taken out five, so the odds aren’t as bad as all that.”

Eliot ignored the snort he heard behind him and listened. There was no sound from above them, but with the sound of the Columbia even louder down here, Eliot couldn’t be sure. But the only way out was up. He gestured to the stairs and for Grace to stay close.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Eliot found that Grace had been wrong about the number of men. There were more than ten who had waited just out of sight, all silent, all armed. Eliot dove for close quarters fighting, knowing that he needed to keep this from turning into a gun fight if he could.

Outnumbered, outgunned, Eliot felt his nose break when he took a hit to the face, and a bruiser who was obviously an ex-SEAL struck his chest so hard that he fell back into the railing and tilted over it. Eliot was able to grab the railing and hang there, intending to control his drop if he could. A short cry from Grace distracted him just long enough that he missed the end of the assault rifle descending to strike his right hand where it gripped the rail. Bones broke and he fell.

*******

Eliot heard the patrol in the hallway. Sounded like one of the men might be that ex-SEAL this time. He hoped that he’d get to have a rematch with that one. And from the sound of the key in the door, that might just be a possibility.

Eliot forced himself to go limp. They’d put him in here unconscious. Let them think that he had been more injured by the fall than he actually was. There were no cameras in this room so there would be no surveillance footage to tell them otherwise.

“Check him,” one man said.

Eliot felt the press of a gun barrel into his side and let it move him slightly. He let out a groan.

“He’s still pretty out of it.” The man leaned over him and continued poking, standing too close for safety. This one was an amateur, making the one at the door the ex-SEAL.

Stretching his fingers, Eliot let them brush against the amateur’s pocket, which was just at the right height. There had to be something useful he could lift while the man was distracted. Eliot felt metal, and quietly snagged at it. He teased the items loose and hid them between his mostly immobile hand and his leg.

“He won’t be going anywhere any time soon,” the amateur said.

The ex-SEAL grunted and Eliot heard them both walk out. The key turned in the door again.

Eliot carefully started to examine what he’d been able to lift. Keys. And there was a pen knife. It was small and dull, so this would be slow. Time to get to work.

**Nine Hours Earlier**

“Babe, you heard from Eliot today?”

Hardison’s voice echoed down the hall from the kitchen. There was something in his tone that immediately put Parker on alert, so she dropped the rig she was checking and went to find him.

“No, I haven’t… Why are you holding a note?” She latched onto that detail immediately. Parker and Hardison didn’t leave notes. That was an Eliot habit. Sometimes it was nothing. Other times…

Hardison looked up at her, eyes dark--a storm of worry, frustration and agitation. “Says he’s helping a friend and he’ll be back.”

Taking the note from Hardison’s outstretched hand, she read it. There was no more, and no less than what Hardison had told her. The terseness of it wasn’t necessarily unusual. The timing, placement and lack of detail were what clued her in to the fact that this was one of those other times. If Eliot had wanted them to find the note quickly, he would not have left it in the kitchen. It would have been on the bedside table, or Hardison’s computer. “Track him.” Parker ordered. “Now.”

“We getting involved?”

“Yes. And when we get him back, we’re explaining why he’s never doing this to us again.”

*******

Eliot hadn’t even cut halfway through the strap on his left wrist when he heard something scraping at the door’s lock. He quickly hid the keys again and listened. This wasn’t the guards. He hadn’t heard any footsteps. Normally that meant--

The door swung open and Parker slipped into the room, quietly shutting the door behind her.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Eliot hissed. Not that he wasn’t glad to see her, but she _should not_ be here.

“Rescuing you.” Parker answered bluntly, her tone flat.

She had him un-strapped and upright in a matter of seconds. Taking him by the shoulder she assessed him, and Eliot knew she missed nothing. The fact that her expression was so shuttered made him feel uneasy--this was not a side Parker usually showed him anymore.

She unwrapped a strip of vet wrap from her wrist and made quick work of bandaging his right hand to stabilize it until they got out. “Yeah, I got him. Rough, but he’s been worse. Exit plan?” Parker murmured. 

Shit. Hardison was here too.

Eliot took the earbud that Parker handed him and got to his feet. He was still unsteady from the concussion, but not as bad as it could have been. Parker slid under his right shoulder and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“I got the guards off on the north side of the building preparing to take on Vance’s soldier boys. You should be clear to leave the way you got in.” Hardison’s voice filtered in clearly over the comms. Eliot knew he should be worried that Hardison was here, but there was no one he trusted more to have their exit cleared.

“Grace.” Eliot’s voice sounded more rusty than usual, even to his own ears.

“Got it covered, man. They’ve moved her to a different area and have two guards; nothin’ you can’t handle. I’m routing you past her on your way out. Parker, they’ve got her in the equipment decontamination room on the main floor, two doors past the stairwell. Get her and run.”

Parker glanced at Eliot, checking in. He jerked his chin and let his arm fall from her shoulders so she could lead the way.

Opening the door a crack, Parker checked the hallway and made an ‘all clear’ gesture.

The room he’d been held in was one of the ones that were around the edge of the central depression of the lower floor, just a couple steps away from where he’d gone over the railing if that smear of blood on the floor was anything to go by. Eliot followed Parker into a different part of the building where he hadn’t been during his previous search. She moved with absolute confidence to another one of the steel plate doors.

Up the stairs and into another hallway. Parker pointed at a door, and Eliot knew that this was where they had stashed Grace. She pulled out a taser and nodded at him to take point.

Eliot knocked on the door, and waited until he heard muffled cursed on the other side. Taking up position, he waited until whoever was on the other side opened it and then pulled the door open wider and slammed it back against the guard. He went down, and Parker was there with her taser as he stormed the room and rushed the other guard. They’d gotten lucky, and apparently Grace’s guards were not ex-special forces of any kind. This group seemed to be an odd mix of trained and un-trained. Eliot was happy to take whatever luck was smiling on them.

Parker tased the second guard too, even though he was down already. She was angry.

**Two Hours Earlier**

Parker took stock of the perimeter of police and security surrounding the facility. There was no way they were going to sneak in there with Lucille.

“Can you do it from here?” she asked.

“‘Course I can, mama. Just need to find the right set of frequencies… Police… Homeland… and… terrorists…” Hardison worked his magic with the computers, and pulled up the chatter for each of the active groups. “It’s a mess in there.”

“Just need to get in and get him out.” Parker reminded him. “The terrorists aren’t our problem.”

“Not just him.” Hardison said, his body going completely still as it did when he put the pieces together. “It’s a hostage situation, and Eliot isn’t the one they’re talking ‘bout. They’ve got a nuclear scientist, a Dr. Grace Landry.”

“Think she’s the friend he went to help?” Parker asked as she pulled out her Homeland Security identity papers and badge. She put the jacket on over her usual dark, fitted clothing. The jacket conveniently covered up her tools, and she hoped it would get her through the perimeter to the building where Eliot and Grace were being held. She’d still need to get a car so she could drive in and work her way toward the building from the perimeter. Going in on foot would get her noticed, and she wanted an easy escape as well. They had no idea what condition Eliot might be in.

“Prob’ly,” Hardison muttered. He was studying surveillance cameras and other feeds she didn’t quite recognize. Was that one of the military satellites? “Homeland is stationed on the east side of the building, but most of the activity has shifted around to the north side. Your best entry should be past Homeland and through the door on the southeast corner.”

“Any chance you’ve got blueprints?” Parker asked, trying not to be hopeful.

“No. I’ll keep listening and try to hack into whatever security feeds are on the building. Looks like we’re going to have to go slow on this one.”

“Slow is fine. Safe is better.” Parker finished putting her kit together, pulled her hair up into a no-nonsense bun and clipped a button cam to her shirt.

Hardison handed her Eliot’s earbud to stash in a pocket.

“Kiss for luck?” he asked, trying to lighten the tension.

Parker smiled. “Who needs luck?”

She hoped they wouldn’t.

*******

Grace was none the worse for their previous escape attempt, Eliot noted as he watched her follow Parker. It didn’t even look like she’d taken any more bruises. He was glad. If Vance hadn’t thrown him into a tight timeline, he wouldn’t have come in so blind. Blind meant too wide a margin for error, and he’d fallen right in the middle of it.

Parker was totally silent as she led them on a winding path through the building, sometimes crossing through rooms and sometimes taking straight shots down hallways. She didn’t talk, just listened as Hardison would give the occasional direction.

Eliot noted the lack of chatter from the hacker and knew that it, like Parker’s closed down emotions, meant that everything was not okay with them. He knew that there would have to be a reckoning once they were all safe and alone, and he owed them an explanation. Right up there with not conning your own team was not disappearing on your partners.

Parker paused as they passed through another room and grabbed something. When she started shrugging into the jacket, Eliot realized that she was masquerading as Homeland Security. It was a good choice, no one would know if she was from a local or remote office or bother to check during the confusion.

“Are the EMTs still in the same place?” Parker’s voice, inaudible in the room, was clear in Eliot’s ear.

“Yeah. Just clear Homeland at the exit and you should be able to reach ‘em easily without hassle. I’ll patch your comm into their frequency so you can tell them you’re on your way out.”

Eliot heard the click, then Parker’s voice. “I’ve got the hostages, exiting the southeast corner, don’t shoot.” A staticy reply filtered back, and then there was another click as Hardison disconnected them.

Parker gestured to them to move fast. They exited the room and were right next to the door to the outside. She went first, holding her hands out clearly, and making sure that the colors and marking on her jacket were visible. Grace was next, and then Eliot.

The bright flood lights made Eliot flinch. He’d been in a dark room for so long it would take a moment to adjust. Parker took one of his arms, and one of Grace’s and led them straight past the perimeter with a “Need to get them checked out”.

Irene saw them before they saw her. The girl’s cry of “Mom!” was all the warning they had before a slender form barrelled into Grace.

Parker was getting antsy beside him as they stood there and awkwardly watched the reunion. Eliot knew they needed to slip away before people started asking questions.

Reaching out, Eliot put a hand on Grace’s shoulder. “I’ll be in touch later. We’ve got to go.”

Grace nodded. Neither she or Doc knew what he and Vance had gotten up to when they’d parted ways, but they probably had some ideas.

“Thanks, Dallas,” Irene told him with a smile.

“See you, kid,” Eliot told her with a wink. She was going to be something, he was sure.

Parker tugged on his arm, leading him away from the lights and the people to a dark colored, nondescript sedan.

“‘Dallas’?” Hardison’s gleeful inquiry came in his ear as soon as they were in the car and heading away from the facility. “Ain’t you from Oklahoma, OK? What’re your old Army buddies calling you ‘Dallas’ for?”

Eliot growled, “They called me that to piss me off.”

“Good to know, good to know!” Hardison was not going to let this one go easily. “Mr. Punchy Dallas.”

“Dammit, Hardison!”

Eliot wouldn’t admit how relieved he was that Hardison was loosening up, while Parker drove like a madwoman and said not a word.

**Four Hours Later**

Eliot got back to their apartment above the brewpub before Hardison and Parker. His car was just faster than Lucille, and Hardison had been driving instead of Parker.

Dropping his bag just inside the door to his room, Eliot debated. Shower? Food? Parker and Hardison wouldn’t be too far behind him…

Ending up in the kitchen, Eliot started pulling together a simple and healthy frittata, knowing that Parker and Hardison probably hadn’t eaten anything beyond what junk food the hacker kept stashed in the van. Being in the kitchen was settling, and Eliot pulled together his thoughts as he chopped, mixed and assembled.

Eliot heard the door to the apartment open just as he was putting the frittata in the oven. He went over to the fridge and pulled out beers for himself and Hardison, and poured a glass of chocolate milk for Parker. There was no point in avoiding them, even if he hadn’t wanted to fix whatever he’d broken.

“So, Dallas, man,” Hardison said with a smirk as he accepted the beer and held it up in a combination toast-salute. “Take a seat at our table. Parker’s getting the first aid kit.”

Doing as he was bid, Eliot moved his drink and Parker’s glass to the small table in the nook off the kitchen. Taking a seat, he stared up at Hardison. “How bad?”

“Bad enough. You shoulda known better.”

“She pissed?”

“Beyond. I’m the one that’s pissed, though I’ll let you make it up to me.” Hardison’s teasing voice turned serious. “I’m just glad you’re okay, Eliot.”

“Broken ribs, broken hand, broken nose,” Parker corrected as she came into the room, kit in hand. She tossed it down on the table.

“At least he didn’t get shot, babe.” Hardison’s tone was deliberately light, though Eliot could see the tenseness around the hacker’s eyes. 

Parker snorted. Even though her emotions were still battened down, her fingers on Eliot’s face were light. A quick movement and she’d reset his nose. Eliot’s eyes watered at the pain.

“You wanna tell us why you left in the middle of the night?” Hardison asked, taking another chair and situating it so that Eliot could see him and Parker at the same time without moving.

“Vance.” The name said it all.

“You don’t work for him; you work with us,” Parker snapped. She was re-wrapping his right hand after taping three of the fingers together. “It was for Grace.”

“I looked her up; that’s one smart lady, man. We’d have helped.”

“You’ve already gotten in trouble in Richland,” Eliot grumbled. “Vance said they knew it was you.”

Hardison grinned and raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t mean I can’t get in again.”

Eliot resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Yeah, Hardison could have gotten in again, but it was more likely that he would’ve gotten caught.

“Tell us about Grace.” Parker ordered. Her voice wasn’t quite as monotone. She was loosening her control and willing to try to understand.

Eliot took a deep breath. He’d answer because Parker asked. “Grace married a man I met during my first deployment. We all call him Doc--he was our unit’s medic. Sharp man; good man. He didn’t let me disappear completely when I went to work for Vance, and when I moved on from there. He met Grace when we served together, I was at their wedding. She’s good for him. I met Irene after Doc was officially discharged after his twenty five. Losing them would have destroyed Doc.”

“Vance knew,” Hardison said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.”

The timer went off, so Eliot gently moved Parker out of the way and went to take the frittata out of the oven. Coming back to the others, Eliot found that Parker was leaning against Hardison’s side, her arm draped over his shoulder and his hand curled around her waist. It was a posture of support and comfort. The fact that Parker was leaning into that intimacy hammered home the fact he’d screwed up.

Eliot took his seat again and held out his good hand to Parker. She took it and let him draw her closer until she was standing between his spread knees. “I’m sorry. You’re our mastermind, sweetheart, and I should have told you. I didn’t want you anywhere near the situation, but that wasn’t my call to make.” The words came out slow; Eliot still didn’t like explaining himself, but these were his partners, and the words were something that they needed. He would do anything that they needed.

Parker rested her hands lightly on his shoulders, and finally-- _finally_ \--her gaze softened and the crinkle lines appeared at the corners of her eyes. “No, it wasn’t. But we understand. Just don’t do that again. We’re a team.”

“A little more than a team,” Hardison reminded them, a familiar mantra even from the early days. Hardison came right up behind Parker and wrapped one arm around her waist. His free hand took Eliot’s now empty one.

Contact. Words. Eliot felt himself relax into the comfort his partners offered. They were all home and safe. He was forgiven. 

“And we got you back in time for you to make pancakes for breakfast in the morning. It’s Saturday. You didn’t think we’d let you miss that, did you?”

Parker’s cheeky smile made Eliot laugh, which was amazing even though it made his ribs ache. And next time Vance called in the middle of the night, he’d hang up.


End file.
